World AIDS Day Spotlight: Interview with Travis McCoy

What a pair of sneakers has to do with a bridge in Manila and mobile cinema in South Africa.

When Gym Class Heroes front man Travis McCoy traveled to South Africa, India and the Philippines last June, he met the leaders of three projects funded by the Staying Alive Foundation, MTV’s global grant-giving organization fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS by empowering young leaders. Inspired by his incredible experience, Travis launched the Unbeaten Track project and wrote the single One At a Time, which drops today — World AIDS Day — with 100% of proceeds going directly to the Foundation to fund even more AIDS-fighting projects around the world.

Today, we sit down with Travis and pick his brains about the Unbeated Track project, how social entrepreneurship differs from philanthropy, and whether there’s a shift in the economy of cool.

Hey Travis, good to have you. Straight to the point — what’s your story of getting involved with the Staying Alive Foundation?

I first became involved with Staying Alive back at the Europe Music Awards in 2008. I was asked to do some filming on the red carpet on behalf of Staying Alive where I would ask fellow artists questions on their attitude towards HIV and AIDS, and other related issues like relationships, cheating and condom use. After spending more time with Georgia — the founder of the Foundation — and seeing what amazing work they did, I immediately asked what else I could do to help. They asked me to be their next Ambassador, and that was that.

It’s a cause that’s important to me because I lost somebody close to me to AIDS when I was younger. At the time I was uneducated about HIV and AIDS so I was afraid. I’d shared the same cutlery as this person; we’d used the same shower… I had so many questions — and looking back — a lot of what I thought to be true about the virus was incorrect. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of people out there still don’t know enough about it and that’s why I think it’s important for those of us in the public eye to educate and set a good example. My life has taken me to a point where I am in the position to influence my fans, and if I can influence the way they dress, the music that they listen to and so on, why can’t I get them to think and be more aware about more serious issues like HIV and AIDS?

It’s often the littlest things that give you the greatest a-ha moments. Do you recall any such seemingly small but monumentally telling anecdote from your travels in June that really opened your eyes to the impact of the Foundation?

Getting to actually meet the young projects leaders and get to know them a bit better, for me, was a definite highlight. Bulelani, Alex and Mandakini are three of the most inspiring people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Their work is tireless, their attitude selfless.

There are few real standout moments though… In South Africa, Bulelani took me on a tour of Site B in Khayelitsha, which is where he lives. It’s the second largest township in South Africa and has an incredibly high HIV infection rate. Bulelani spreads HIV prevention and awareness messaging through a creative filmmaking process with local youth. He then shows the films produced using his Mobile Cinema, which is funded by the Foundation.

I was walking along with him chatting about his work and I asked him what he’d do if Hollywood came knocking with a million-dollar deal… His response cemented my original thoughts about him — without hesitation, he said that he’d turn them down because his work as a filmmaker is in Khayletisha where he sees a problem that needs to be addressed. I love the fact that the Foundation is able to find and fund these dedicated and motivated individuals who are really making a difference in their communities.

Another moment on the trip that really affected me was visiting Kaybuboy Bridge in Manila.

There were around 80 families living under this bridge in absolute poverty, and it made me think of all the people who publicly pride themselves on coming from “the hood” and the fact that where they grew up is so tough; and I just thought, ‘live under a bridge for two years, and then tell me how hard your life is.’

I came out from under that bridge a different person — it made me realize that we really need to stop being selfish and start thinking more about not only our community, but also our world as a whole.

For the past two decades, MTV has been a powerful merchant of cool, shaping much of what youth admires and aspires to. All throughout, it has faced criticism – especially from academia – for promoting superficial belief systems and lifestyles. But in recent years, MTV has championed a number of socially-conscious causes, from sustainability to anti-smoking to AIDS. How do you see celebrities’ and the media’s responsibility in reframing of the concept of “cool,” shifting it from the ownership of cool things, a.k.a. “bling,” and towards the doership of good deeds?

I think it’s important that anybody who has the power to make an impression on others must use their role wisely. Sometimes artists are naïve and stubborn and think they don’t have a responsibility in inspiring youth. I hate when artists take the attitude of “Oh, I’m not a role model. I’m just a young person just trying to live my life.” Well, of course you are, but at the same time, you can’t deny that in this position you’re very influential to the kids who are coming out to see you and buying your CD. I was stubborn for a long time. I’m human. But in time, I ended up seeing right in front of my face the effect I have on kids, whether it’s influencing the way they dress or the music they listen to. And if I can have that effect on kids, I hope I can have the effect or urge them to educate themselves and practice safe sex.

If I can get them to spend however much money on a pair of sneakers, hopefully I can get them to spend three dollars on a box of condoms.

No celebrity can deny it, kids look up to us, and we have to make sure that we’re setting a good example when they do look to us.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a shift from a philanthropic model – the dishing out of aid to passive recipients — towards social entrepreneurship and microfunding, where capital ends up in the hands of active local leaders, empowering them to facilitate change from the inside and growing exponentially as they build on what they’ve been given. How does the Foundation’s mission differ from the traditional aid model?

The Foundation is definitely a believer in this newer business model. If you compare the funding from the Foundation to that of an angel investment, it’s pretty much the same deal. The Foundation funds those who would otherwise find it very difficult to get funding.

That’s what makes the Foundation so different. It only funds small projects that have had little or no funding at all. These projects must also be run by young people. The Foundation gives these young people a chance to get their projects off the ground and develop them into stronger, more independent organizations. The Foundation has recently developed a training scheme whereby grantees get training to allow them to continue developing even after the Foundation funding stops after a maximum of four years.

There’s no question music offers a universal language and has been incredibly successful in generating awareness with efforts like LiveAid and Playing For Change. But as an artist, how do you think musicians can help tackle the quintessential challenge of moving the needle from mere awareness to actionable, tangible change?

Wow, that’s a great question. I think the first step is for us, as artists, to make sure we live by our lyrics and what we’re asking of people. It’s no use me putting this track out there and that being it. I need people to take action and buy the track to show their commitment to the cause.

I think the reason that the Unbeaten Track project works so well is that it goes beyond just raising awareness. The documentary, which is going out on all MTV Channels today, as well as to hundreds of third party broadcasters, will do an amazing job at raising awareness for HIV/AIDS as well as for the Foundation. But the track is really where the action happens, that’s where we can make a real tangible difference by raising money for the Foundation so they can carry on empowering and enabling these young leaders to continue making changes within their community. Moving forward, I think that it’s really important that these awareness-raising projects that artists lend their names to have to have a fundraising elements included.

AIDS is such a colossal problem that it can get overwhelming to think about our capacity as individuals to make a difference. Got any words of wisdom for how a single person can have impact, particularly on World AIDS Day?

My motto is “Each one, teach one.” People need to educate themselves about HIV/AIDS and then pass on that knowledge. Imagine if every single person in the world knew that protecting themselves from the dangers of HIV is as simple as wearing a condom. Imagine how much stigma it would lessen if people knew that you cannot catch HIV/AIDS from sharing cutlery or from touching. Educate yourself and then spread the word. And today, if YOU want to make an impact, help me support the Staying Alive Foundation by buying my track One At A Time from Staying Alive Foundation. Every single cent will go to funding current and future Foundation projects.

You can buy One At A Time for just ¢99 on iTunes in the US and from BandCamp globally — that’s ¢99 going straight to the fight against AIDS in parts of the world where many people live on $1 a day.

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The Wall In My Head: Words & Art from the Fall of the Iron Curtain

What fallen checkpoints have to do with a generation of artists.

Twenty years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall changed the course of world history as November 9, 1989, marked democracy’s most politically and socially consequential win. When the checkpoints between East and West Berlin burst open, two world that had been kept apart for nearly three decades finally came together, each with its unique tradition of art, ideology and cultural heritage.

Today, Words Without Borders, the international nonprofit working to promote international communication through translation of the world’s best writing, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with the release of The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain — a gem of an anthology of fiction, essays, images, and original documents, tracing the evolution of this revolutionary spirit from its 1989 origins to the present day.

Unlike traditional historical accounts of that era, The Wall in My Head goes straight to the grittiest, rawest source — the generation of artists and writers who witnessed the fall of the Iron Curtain first-hand. Shaped by this monumental event, their life and work offer profound memories, reflections and insight into that incredible era of frustration, optimism and epic change.

Through this incredible spectrum of stories, voices and accounts, The Wall in My Head paints a rich and powerful portrait of the event that made possible so much of what we take for granted today.

You can read about the project on the book’s blog and sample it with this free chapter [PDF].

The Wall in My Head is out on Amazon — who made the book possible with a charitable donation — today.

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Buy Nothing: No, Really, It’s For Sale

What the hottest gift this holiday season is, or how to dodge your modern addictions.

Let’s face it, we live in a material world. And this week is its annual pinnacle, the frantic shopping bonanza known as Black Friday. But it’s also the 10th international Buy Nothing Day — Friday in the U.S. and Saturday everywhere else. It’s a chance to detox from the omnivorous toxicity of conspicuous consumption, to seek some brief redemption from our wasteful and unsustainable more-more-more modus operandi. (Come on, did you really need that Steve Jobs bobblehead?)

Our friends at Do The Green Thing are doing something quite ingenious — they’re selling nothing. Really. Their Buy Nothing campaign is a clever reminder that we all buy stuff, often just for the sake of buying, while sticking with what we’ve got can make more sense. So in their Amazero store, an Amazon mock-up, you can literally purchase Nothing, which costs, well, nothing — they’ve got the standard e-commerce checkout procedure, from the Buy It Now button to the email confirmation after your purchase. (We’ve worked out a special deal for Brain Pickings readers — you can purchase Nothing for 30% off using this link.)

The point, of course, isn’t to completely eradicate consumption — that would be absurd — but, rather, to help us be more mindful of what it is we actually need versus what we buy just for the new-stuff thrill of it.

The effort is a simple yet powerful reminder that, over the holidays, we often end up giving and getting lots of useless stuff. (Green Thing did a survey, which found — unsurprisingly — that 96% of people have gotten a useless gift at some point. We can attest with what’s now a vast collection of annual reindeer figurines from grandma.) That stuff takes energy and precious resources to make, creating unfortunate waste as it ends up in landfills.

And if you think you’re immune to the buybuybuy messaging of the ad industry, you can test just how stealthy its impact is in the All Spin No Substance game, where you get to guess the brand advertised based solely on its logoless visual communication — we bet you’d be surprised how many you get right.

Buy Nothing promotes one of Green Thing’s 7 green actions, stick with what you got, as an antidote to our reckless and thoughtless material habits. And with testimonials from an impressive line-up of celebrities (including one of our favorite British indie bands, The Noisettes) swearing by Nothing, it’s not hard to buy into it.

And if you still feel the compulsion to buy — because, let’s face it, we’ve been so powerfully conditioned for it by today’s media environment — Green Thing’s got your back. Dr. Will Powers, retail therapist, can help you dodge any temptation to buy with some grounded professional advice. You can email him for help in taming your shopaholic urges, or tweet your concerns to @DrWillPowers.

We love both the clever campaign and what it aims to achieve. (We’ve even offered Green Thing some ad space on Brain Pickings — look right — for the attractive price of Nothing.) So exorcise your shopping urges this weekend by buying yourself some Nothing — we vouch for it with a full money-back guarantee.

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Social Justice with a Twist: Ctrl.Alt.Shift

Blurring the boundaries between activism, advertisement, and art, or how you can get hand grenades to hang on your Christmas tree.

More often than not, you can tell the age of a social institution by its name. The NAACP’s etymology clearly has its origin in the early-20^th century. Friends of the Earth? Obviously a late 1960s lovechild. So you might guess that Ctrl.Alt.Shift, an organization whose name refers to computer keyboard commands, almost certainly harks from recent years—and you’d be correct.

A UK-based social initiative, Ctrl.Alt.Shift is a formally incorporated social movement for global justice. In an interesting departure from traditional anti-establishment associations, Ctrl.Alt.Shift locates its arena of action as much within prevailing systems as outside them. This approach has come to define millennial movements, in fact; these days the phrase “by any means necessary” could refer equally to change initiated within the boardroom or protests led by bullhorn from the street below.

Whether you’re into music, fashion, politics or direct action, photography, design, dance, art or journalism, there’s a place for you within our movement to fight social and global injustice.

(Okay, maybe business is missing from that career list—but you get the point.)

The movement’s most recent incarnation took the form of a comic book called Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption. Launched this month, the limited-edition anthology collected original political work from artists and satirists including Dave McKean and Peter Kuper. The cleverly subversive comics, currently on view in the Lazarides Gallery in London, take on subjects such as imperialism (in “Reagan’s Raiders,” featuring the former President’s face superimposed on Captain America) and race (in “I Am Curious, Black!” with Lois Lane transforming into a Blaxploitation-style character).

Ctrl.Alt.Shift’s efforts so far have focused on governments’ HIV travel bans (with a campaign cleverly entitled “Nothing to Declare”), Latin American conflict, and broader issues of social justice such as gender inequality. Taking notes from the provocation playbook of TEDsters (and Brain Pickings favorite) The Yes Men, Ctrl.Alt.Shift has staged media-savvy public interventions like demonstrations outside foreign embassies, and a planned march through London to raise awareness of female infanticide in India. And like another urbane media brand, VICE (with whom it has co-sponsored exhibitions), Ctrl.Alt.Shift publishes an eponymous magazine, which it makes available in clubs and shops throughout the UK.

Other strategies seek to engage participation through competition, like a short-film contest held earlier this year (the winning entry was HIV: The Musical) as well as other targeted actions and social networking features on its website. And with a roster of hip collaborators like musician Estelle, photographer Nan Goldin, and the environmental group Plane Stupid, Ctrl.Alt.Shift seems well situated to bring its high-profile brand of activism to greater global attention. We say if a slick sell will get people talking about rape as a weapon of war, or greater buy-in around climate talks, then sell, sell away.

Have a look at Ctrl.Alt.Shift’s videos and blog to see if you’d literally like to buy into their program.

Kirstin Butler is writing an adaptation of Gogol for the Google era called Dead SULs, but when not working spends far, far too much time on Twitter. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA.

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